Saturday, January 30, 2010

Yushchenko’s decree “legalizes state terrorism and murder” because
Stepan Bandera led “the killings of school directors, teachers, and law
enforcement officials.”

Ukraine's defeated Presidential candidate ,Viktor Yushchenko has in the dying days of his office declared Stepan Bandera a national hero. There was no consensus or legislative review of the presidents decree.

Bandera and his organisation of "Ukrainian Nationalists" supported Hitler and his invasion of Ukraine and Russia during the second world war. His collaboration resulted in the mass murder of thousands if not millions of people.

Yushchenko continues to bring himself and Ukraine into disrepute. Viktor Yushchenko lost office when he was defeated having only received 5.45% of the vote during the first round of the Presidential elections held on January 17, 2010.

Present day Ukrainian Nationalist movement is headed by Australian Stepan Romaniv.

Jews worldwide outraged by Yushchenko’s praising of nationalists

The largest
Jewish human rights organization in the US, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, joined the chorus of those who condemn the declaration of
controversial nationalist leader Stepan Bandera as a Hero of Ukraine.

Mark
Weitzman, head of government affairs at Wiesenthal Center wrote to
Ukraine’s Ambassador in the US, noting that “it is surely a travesty
when such an honor is granted right at the period when the world pauses
to remember the victims of the Holocaust on January 27.”

Expressing his “deepest revulsion”, Weitzman also reminded that the late Simon Wiesenthal, who founded their organization, was born in Ukraine himself.
Earlier, Russian Jews similarly called Yushchenko’s move “a
provocation promoting the rehabilitation of Nazi crimes” and “a
challenge to the civilized world.”

Outgoing President Yushchenko, who lost the presidential elections
on January 17, signed a decree conferring Bandera, the head of the
Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) in 1941-1959, the status
of a national hero.

Bandera’s supporters – mainly in Western Ukraine – claim he fought
for Ukraine’s independence against both Soviet and German soldiers.
However, many others in his country and Russia believe he was a war
criminal who collaborated with the Nazis during WWII and killed
innocent people.

The Federation of Russia’s Jewish Communities, or FEOR, in a
statement issued Monday, said Yushchenko’s move “insults the memory of
the victims” of Nazi crimes.

“The decree says Bandera was awarded ‘for his spiritual
invincibility, fight for national ideology, heroism and self-sacrifice
in a struggle for the independence of Ukrainian state’,” the document published on the organization’s website (www.feor.ru) reads. “Apparently,
this way Yushchenko equates heroism and self-sacrifice to the mass
murdering of the Jews and Poles that Bandera and his associates were
widely practicing.”

The document authors believe “such a political gesture is a challenge to the civilized world, to everyone who fought against Nazism” during the Second World War.

Stepan Bandera

According to the FEOR, “anti-Semitic and pro-Nazi”
actions by the Ukrainian leadership have become rather common in recent
years. They say Yushchenko’s decree signifies “disrespect to Soviet
soldiers that his troops fought against and to all people who gave
their lives in order to let today’s Europeans be free.”
The Federation of Russian Jews believes that the next Ukrainian
president should reverse Yushchenko’s “disgraceful decrees” and make
statements against the revision of WWII results.

During his presidency Yushchenko has widely promoted Ukrainian
nationalism. Previously, another leader of Ukrainian nationalists,
Roman Shukhevych, was awarded the Hero of Ukraine title.

On January 22, Bandera’s grandson, also named Stepan, received the award for his grandfather.“Even though it was a surprise to me, the president acted wisely,” he told Radio Liberty. “[Yushchenko] could have done it earlier, but that would have been perceived as an attempt to win votes.”

Search for new heroes in “ideological vacuum”

According to Russia’s Jewish community, now that Yushchenko, who
gained slightly more than 5% of the vote in the recent election, has no
chances left to continuing fighting for his presidency. Therefore,
“he has decided to leave his mark on Ukraine’s history as a person who
tried to immortalize the memory of the country’s nationalists.”

“Ukrainian society is split into two parts, one of which is
strongly opposed to the move and is angered by it… whilst the other
supports the president’s decision,” Andrey Glotser, representative of Russia's

Chief Rabbi Berl Lazar told RT.

Following the collapse of the USSR, many former Soviet territories
including Ukraine and the Baltic states have been in search of new
national heroes, he said. However, due to an “ideological vacuum”, this
search is pretty difficult. “Their independence is quite young and these states look for new heroes among those who fought against the Soviet rule,” Glotser said.

“Instead of approaching history with clean hands and being
impartial when considering the issue, they declare heroes of those
whose morality was questionable since they were killing innocent
people,” he said. The Nuremberg trials condemned the crimes of the Nazi and their accomplices, “so it is strange to see what is happening now in these states.”

“We believe there is no reasonable or logical explanation to this and there cannot be one,” he added.

Europe turns blind eye to heroization of Nazism

Some member states of the Council of Europe have lately become more
active and aggressive in their heroization of Fascism and revising
results of the Second World War, the Head of the State Duma Foreign
Affairs Committee Konstantin Kosachev told Itar-Tass.

“Unfortunately, quite often these states use rather questionable formulations,” said Kosachev, who is also the head of the Russian delegation to the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly (PACE).“In Ukraine, Bandera is honored as a fighter for independence. In Georgia, they blow up a memorial since, they claim, it is necessary in order to make way for building a [new parliament building],” he said.

According to the Russian official, the issue should be discussed openly, fairly and in an unbiased way.

However, “Ukraine, the Baltic states and Georgia have many sponsors, who, for geopolitical reasons, turn a blind eye” on what is happening in these states.

He said this kind of faulty policy is quite common in the
international arena, including PACE, and vowed to continue fighting
with it by introducing relevant resolutions and condemnation of the
heroization of Nazism.
Andrey Glotser, Lazar's press secretary, echoed the Russian official opinion. He said he thinks that “the
reaction of European leaders such as France, Germany, Great Britain and
others should be harsher. However, for some reason, statements we hear
are not strong enough.”

Meanwhile, the reaction of some in Ukraine was certainly strong.
Konstantin Zarudnev, a member of the Leninsky District Council and an
activist from the Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine burned his
passport in protest against naming Bandera a hero, Interfax agency
reports.

He said Yushchenko’s decree “legalizes state terrorism and murder” because Stepan Bandera led “the killings of school directors, teachers, and law enforcement officials.”

Bandera was accused of murder and terrorism by Soviet authorities.
On October 15, 1959, he was assassinated by a KGB agent in Munich,
Germany.

News in review

Parliamentary Assembly Council of Europe (PACE) Explanatory Report calls on Ukraine to adopt a Full Parliamentary System in line with other European States

"It would be better for the country to switch to a full parliamentary system with proper checks and balances and guarantees of parliamentary opposition and competition."

Constitutional Court challenge

The authority of the President to dismiss Ukraine's parliament has been challenged in Ukraine's Constitutional Court amidst concern that the President's actions are unconstitutional in that he has exceeded his authority to dismiss Ukraine's parliament.

On April 19 the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe passed a resolution in consideration of a report titled Functioning of democratic institutions in Ukraine. (Items 13 and 14) stated:

“ The Assembly deplores the fact that the judicial system of Ukraine has been systematically misused by other branches of power and that top officials do not execute the courts’ decisions, which is a sign of erosion of this crucial democratic institution. An independent and impartial judiciary is a precondition for the existence of a democratic society governed by the rule of law. Hence the urgent necessity to carry out comprehensive judicial reform, including through amendments to the constitution.

The Assembly reiterates that the authority of the sole body responsible for constitutional justice – the Constitutional Court of Ukraine – should be guaranteed and respected. Any form of pressure on the judges is intolerable and should be investigated and criminally prosecuted. On the other hand, it is regrettable that in the eight months of its new full composition, the Constitutional Court has failed to produce judgments, thus failing to fulfil its constitutional role and to contribute to resolving the crisis in its earlier stages, which undermines the credibility of the court.

There is an urgent need for all pending judgments, and in particular the judgment concerning the constitutionality of the Presidential Decree of 2 April 2007, to be delivered. If delivered, the latter should be accepted as binding by all sides.
”

The associated explanatory report under the sub-heading of Pressure on the courts expressed concern that "Several local courts have made decisions to suspend the Presidential Decree only to then withdraw them, allegedly under pressure from the presidential secretariat." (item 67)

In emphasis the report (item 68) stated

"This is a worrying tendency of legal nihilism that should not be tolerated. It is as clear as day that in a state governed by the rule of law judicial mistakes should be corrected through appeal procedures and not through threats or disciplinary sanctions ”

On April 30, on the eve of the Constitutional Court's ruling on the legality of the president's decree dismissing Ukraine's parliament, President Yushchenko, in defiance of the PACE resolution of April 19 intervened in the operation of Ukraine's Constitutional Court by summarily dismissing two Constitutional Court Judges, Syuzanna Stanik and Valeriy Pshenychnyy, for allegations of "oath treason." His move was later overturned by the Constitutional Court and the judges were returned by a temporary restraining order issued by the court.

Following the president's intervention the Constitutional Court still has not ruled on the question of legality of the president's actions.

Stepan Havrsh, the President's appointee to the Constitutional Court, in prejudgment of the courts decision and without authorization from the Court itself, commented in an interview published on July 24

“ I cannot imagine myself as the Constitutional Court in condition in which three political leaders signed a political/legal agreement on holding early elections, which also stipulates the constitutional basis for holding the elections... How the court can agree to consider such a petition under such conditions.”

Olexander Lavrynovych, Ukrainian Minister for Justice, in an interview published on Aug 3 is quoted as saying

“ According to the standards of the Constitution and the laws of Ukraine, these elections should have been recognized invalid already today. But we understand that we speak about the State and about what will happen further in this country. As we've understood, political agreements substitute for the law, ... The situation has been led to the limit, where there are no possibilities to follow all legal norms.